This invention relates to an image forming apparatus with a plurality of colors and, more particularly, to an image forming apparatus suitable for an electronic copying machine that can selectively form a multicolor image within a short period of time to correspond with an original with a plurality of colors.
Many conventional copying machines can only reproduce a monocolor image even when the original has a plurality of colors. Although a multicolor image forming apparatus that can print out an image in a plurality of colors in correspondence with a multicolored original image through scanning operation has already been known, an apparatus of this type is generally expensive. In addition this type of apparatus requires a long period of time for the print-out operation.